No Longer Taken for Granted

When former Israeli national team coach Avram Grant was appointed coach of English soccer giants Chelsea in 2007, the British manager was characteristically cruel: Avram who? screamed the headlines in the tabloid press. By the end of Grant's reign, no one was asking that any more.

It may seem strange to include Grant's time at Chelsea in a list of top sporting moments, since his record there reads like the biography of the eternal also-ran: Under the Israeli coach, Chelsea was runner up in the Premier League, runner up in the League Cup and - most famously - beaten finalist in the Champions League.

But delve a little deeper into the stats, and you'll find that he only lost six games as manager at Stamford Bridge and, when he was fired in May 2008, had a 66 percent win record.

And like Jose Mourinho, the man who pundits said he was unqualified to replace, Grant completed his period as Chelsea manager without losing a single home game in the Premier League.

Say what you will about his coaching style (dour and uninspiring are the most-repeated epithets) and about the fact that he may only have been given the Chelsea job because of his close friendship with owner Roman Abramovich, but his year in charge of one of the biggest soccer clubs in the world was a proud time for Israelis.

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